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Sometimes an image is just too beautiful not to have as an IotD. This one from MSNBC. The craft is basically a parachute with an engine on it, one of the safest kinds of aircraft I would imagine. If the engine fails you become a skydiver.

Apparently this one took off just after a thunderstorm and near dusk, which provided the backdrop of clouds and colors. I would expect the photographer bumped up the color saturation a little...

jaguar Tuesday Jul 20 12:50 PM

If you want to take off just after a thunderstorm at dusk you'd want to be in a fairly safe aircraft.

xoxoxoBruce Tuesday Jul 20 12:51 PM

Great image, UT. :thumpsup:

Cyber Wolf Tuesday Jul 20 01:32 PM

Indeed, that's a real nice picture. Beautiful thunderheads there too.

Guess Tuesday Jul 20 02:53 PM

great silhouette shot! man i want to do that

wolf Wednesday Jul 21 02:46 AM

It's definitely pretty, but I fail to understand the joy of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Yellow #5 Wednesday Jul 21 10:22 AM

He didn't jump from a plane at least. He took off from the ground like an ultralight.

I would be concerned about flying anywhere near those clouds in that rinky-dink contraption though.

scubadude Wednesday Jul 21 08:05 PM

Paragliding is great!!

To be technically correct, the 'chute' is called a paraglider, and is closer to a wing than to a parachute. Yes, adding the prop to it make it very safe, and also very noisy.

Riding the updrafts around a thunderstorm is one of the most exhilirating experiences there is - don't leave this world without trying it !

Safe flying

xoxoxoBruce Wednesday Jul 21 08:25 PM

Quote:

don't leave this world without trying it !

The trick is not to leave this world BY trying it. Cyber Wolf Thursday Jul 22 09:09 AM

Paragliding is extremely fun, only when I did it, I got into the air by literally running off a 2500 ft cliff in Austria (long story behind that...). It was right after a rain storm had passed so the air was moist and cool and it was sunny and breezy and was 15 of the most exhilirating minutes of my life. I have GOT to do it again.

That is some amazing stuff, the ballooning. The dude claims you should know how to fly before attemping the balloon cluster flying, but I... I have to doubt it...

Quote:

For this flight, I launched from Temecula, in the Southern California Wine Country with 72 latex balloons. When I released the cord holding me to the ground, my balloons and I soared upward at five-hundred feet per minute. It was an incredible feeling. Finally, as the thin air became hard to breathe, I leveled out at over 16,000 feet. The wind took me twenty miles to the east, over a lake to a mountain valley, where I landed in a meadow in a pine forest.

I remember that balloons have the right-of-way in any piloting situation, so in theory the planes have to fly around you, but still. You're not on the radar I would imagine... consider a big-ass jet coming out of the clouds. They would never find your body.mmmBoy Wednesday Aug 11 01:10 PM